Better puck tracking has led to better results for Tristan Jarry
Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry will enjoy something of a personal triumph Tuesday when he starts his fifth consecutive game, leading his team against the Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena, as scheduled.
It will be the first time this season Jarry had strung that many starts together.
And given how well he performed in the four preceding contests, the decision to go with him for a fifth occasion isn’t difficult for coach Mike Sullivan.
Over the previous week, Jarry had a 3-1-0 record, a 2.27 goals against average and a .936 save percentage.
Those figures are considerably better than what Jarry had offered in his first seven games of the season when he went 2-4-1 with a 3.95 goals against average and a .857 save percentage.
So what has been doing better, aside from stopping the puck of course?
Seeing the puck better.
Jarry has regularly cited better puck tracking as a reason for his resurgence as of late.
“That’s been a big thing, just in games, just trying to find the first couple feet of it leaving (an opposing player’s) stick then trying to track it as long as I can until I see it either hit a stick or go through a screen,” Jarry said via video conference Monday. “Then just trying to find it after that and battling to get the rebound. The defense has done a great job again just helping me and making sure they’re blocking guys and taking sticks. That’s helped (backup goaltender Casey DeSmith) and I a lot just with screens and deflections the last couple of games.”
It seems like a pretty simple notion. See the puck, stop the puck.
But just as a compass can tell you what direction true north is, it won’t guide you through swamps and over mountains nor will it help you see through legs, sticks or a 235-pound power forward with his backside in front of your face.
“When you look at how the game is being played today, it’s an important aspect of playing the goaltending position,” Sullivan said. “There’s lots of traffic at the net front by nature of teams collapsing coverage with the way they defend. A lot of offensive schemes across the league are plays that go low to high with traffic at the net front. There are off-net deflection opportunities in the event there isn’t a direct shot lane to the net. So your ability to track the puck and react I think is critical to having success as a goaltender the way today’s game is being played.”
An element the Penguins have stressed this season — for both the benefit of attacking players and the goaltenders — is net-front traffic.
“I’ve always been a believer that those types of habits translate from a practice environment,” Sullivan said. “This is something that we work with our goaltenders on daily. It’s an important aspect of playing the position. It’s an evolution of how the game is being played today.”
Even with a simple concept such as seeing the puck, there are plenty of nuances in how to observe it.
“Just being able to watch it, see it all the way through and just making sure that your timing is good and that you’re seeing the puck all the way through until it hits you or something happens, that’s a big part of the game now,” Jarry said. “Not moving too early or too late I guess, just timing it at the right time, I think that helps a lot. And it helps in practice when the guys are pushing you and doing their best to score, that’s where it starts.”
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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